Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Remember the sci-fi cult classic "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"? The 1956 movie is about a small town where extraterrestrial "pods" take over the townspeople. Even pillars of the community change into zombielike clones, as revealed by their blank stares and abnormal impulses. Outwardly, though, the "pod people" remain unchanged.

The town doctor, played by Kevin McCarthy, figures out what's going on, but, as the movie progresses, there are fewer real people to warn. Soon, they've all gone over to the Other Side! The climactic sequence features McCarthy, the last free man, running across a rugged landscape and onto a crowded highway to warn the rest of humanity.

True confession: I can relate. Sometimes, gearing up for a weekly column -- particularly when it's another entry in the annals of the Islamization of the West -- feels a lot like running onto the highway yelling, "Stop! Listen! It's coming! You're next ..." The feeling gets stronger still when sizing up what I can describe only as body-snatched impulses in real-life pillars of society. I refer to people in positions of responsibility -- in uniform, even -- who, by all appearances, are "normal" until -- wham! -- their eyes go glassy and you realize you're looking at ... a pod person.

Am I kidding? I don't know how else to explain the memorandum sent out last week by the Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey. (Well, I do, but bear with me.) Could it have been sent out by a pod person who just looks like a Joint Chiefs chairman? It's the general's signature, all right, and his official seal. But the memo itself is from another planet.

Diana West is the author of American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character (St. Martin's Press, 2013), and The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization (St. Martin's Press, 2007).